[6] Small companies of shooters (Schützenfähnlein)[6] from the German states and Swiss cantons would form teams of Scharfschützen[7] for such popular competitions; proudly carrying flags depicting a crossbow on one side and a target musket on the other.

[8][page needed][9][page needed] Typical sniper missions include managing intelligence information they gather during reconnaissance, target acquisition and impact feedback for air strikes and artillery, assisting employed combat force with accurate fire support and counter-sniper tactics, killing enemy commanders, selecting targets of opportunity, and even destruction of military equipment, which tend to require use of anti-materiel rifles in the larger calibers such as the .50 BMG, like the Barrett M82, McMillan Tac-50, and Denel NTW-20.

Snipers have increasingly been demonstrated as useful by US and UK forces in the recent Iraq campaign in a fire support role to cover the movement of infantry, especially in urban areas.

[9][page needed] In most recent combat operations occurring in large densely populated towns, such as Fallujah, Iraq, two teams would be deployed together to increase their security and effectiveness in an urban environment.

Using a spotting scope and/or a rangefinder, the spotter will predict the external ballistics and read the wind speed using an anemometer or physical indicators like the mirage caused by ground heat.

Also, in conjunction with the shooter, the spotter will calculate the distance, shooting angle (slant range), mil-related correction, interference by atmospheric factors and the required leads for moving targets.

[18] In one high-profile incident commonly referred to as "The Shot Seen Around the World" due to going viral online, Mike Plumb, a SWAT sniper in Columbus, Ohio, prevented a suicide by shooting a revolver out of the individual's hand, leaving him unharmed.

The calculation assumes a flat-fire scenario (a situation where the shooting and target positions are at equal elevation), using British military custom high-pressure .338 Lapua Magnum cartridges, loaded with 16.2 g (250 gr) Lapua LockBase B408 bullets, fired at 936 m/s (3,071 ft/s) muzzle velocity[27] under the following on-site (average) atmospheric conditions: barometric pressure: 1,019 hPa (30.1 inHg) at sea-level equivalent or 899 hPa (26.5 inHg) on-site, humidity: 25.9%, and temperature: 15 °C (59 °F) in the region for November 2009,[28] resulting in an air density ρ = 1.0854 kg/m3 at the 1,043 m (3,422 ft) elevation of Musa Qala.

In a 1772 letter, a soldier described enemies firing very accurately:[31] … in erecting our batteries, the people frequently play tricks, by putting a hat with a cockade in it on a spunge staff, which the enemy fire at and often hit, to the diversion of the soldiery, who humorously call it sniping, and watch the flash to return the fire.On 11 September 1777, during the Battle of Brandywine, British Captain Patrick Ferguson had a tall, distinguished American officer in his rifle's iron sights.

The most notable incident was during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, where on 9 May 1864, Union General John Sedgwick was killed by a Confederate Whitworth sharpshooter at a range of about 1,000 yards (910 meters) after saying the enemy "couldn't hit an elephant at this distance".

The first British sniper unit began life as the Lovat Scouts, a Scottish Highland regiment formed in 1899, that earned high praise during the Second Boer War (1899–1902).

"[49] Burnham distinguished himself in wars in South Africa, Rhodesia, and in Arizona fighting the Apaches, and his definitive work, Scouting on Two Continents, provides a dramatic and enlightening picture of what a sniper was at the time and how he operated.

Major Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard was given formal permission to begin sniper training in 1915, and founded the First Army School of Sniping, Observation, and Scouting at Linghem in France in 1916.

During the campaigns in North Africa and Italy, most fighting occurred in arid and mountainous regions where the potential for concealment was limited, in contrast to Western and Central Europe.

[citation needed] The U.S. Army's lack of familiarity with sniping tactics proved disastrous in Normandy and the campaign in Western Europe where they encountered well trained German snipers.

[11][page needed] German snipers often infiltrated Allied lines and sometimes when the front-lines moved, they continued to fight from their sniping positions, refusing to surrender until their rations and munitions were exhausted.

While this tactic generally ended in the demise of the sniper, giving rise to the nickname "Suicide Boys" that was given to those soldiers, this irrational behavior proved quite disruptive to the Allied forces' progress.

Military sniper training aims to teach a high degree of proficiency in camouflage and concealment, stalking, observation and map reading as well as precision marksmanship under various operational conditions.

[9][page needed] The effect can be estimated from a chart, which may be memorized or taped to the rifle, although some scopes come with Bullet Drop Compensator (BDC) systems that only require the range be dialed in.

[9][page needed] This device is clamped to the tubular body of the telescopic sight, and gives an indicative readout in numerical form as the rifle is aimed up or down at the target.

[9][page needed] The term "hide site" refers to a covered and concealed position from which a sniper and his team can conduct surveillance or fire at targets.

A good hide conceals and camouflages the sniper effectively, provides cover from enemy fire and allows a wide view of the surrounding area.

[70] Snipers are trained for the detection, identification, and location of a targeted soldier in sufficient detail to permit the effective employment of lethal and non-lethal means.

Some rifles, such as the Denel NTW-20 and Vidhwansak, are designed for a purely anti-materiel (AM) role, e.g. shooting turbine disks of parked aircraft, missile guidance packages, expensive optics, and the bearings, tubes or wave guides of radar sets.

Other calibers, such as the .408 Cheyenne Tactical and the .338 Lapua Magnum, are designed to be capable of limited AM application, but are ideally suited as long range anti-personnel rounds.

In many ways, the psychological impact imposed by snipers is quite similar to those of landmines, booby-traps, and IEDs (constant threat, high "per event" lethality, inability to strike back).

It requires strong leadership and great moral strength to prevent soldiers from releasing their anger and frustration on captured snipers or civilians suspected of sniping at them.

Thus, attempts to draw fire are often made, sometimes by offering a helmet slightly out of concealment, a tactic successfully employed in the Winter War by the Finns known as "Kylmä-Kalle" (Cold Charlie).

[79] Sniping has been used in asymmetric warfare situations, for example in the Northern Ireland Troubles, where in 1972, the bloodiest year of the conflict, the majority of the soldiers killed were shot by concealed IRA riflemen.

[75] The rationale for this is that ordinary soldiers shoot at each other at 'equal opportunity' whilst snipers take their time in tracking and killing individual targets in a methodical fashion with a relatively low risk of retaliation.